We at Razzball realize that exporting our views across the country has damaging consequences on the blogosphere. To help make amends, we are reaching out to leading team blogs and featuring their locally blogged answers to pressing 2011 fantasy baseball questions regarding their team. We feel this approach will be fresher, more sustainable, and require less energy consumption (for us anyway). The 2011 Padres Fantasy Baseball Preview comes courtesy of Gaslamp Ball.

1) I’m going to try and make these questions as positive as possible, which is of course a segue for negativity. Let’s see if I can guess the lineup: Bartlett, Hudson, Headley, Ludwick, Hawpe, Venable, Maybin, Hundley… I wanna say you guys look pretty set for seven hole hitters, but try and instill some optimism in me.

Your lineup looks pretty close. Let’s take that lineup and consider last year’s lineup at the same positions.

Just how much better or worse we’ve gotten at each position can be argued, but by this count, we should improve at three positions, get worse at two (though Hundley may make up a little bit of power over Yorvit) and stay even at the other three (assuming players meet expectations, which admittedly, aren’t particularly great). The one tough thing to figure is the fact that most of the guys in the lineup that are new or coming from off years, but if this were 2007-2009, then we’re looking at a bunch of All-Stars. Also, we’re figuring on Venable and Maybin to have breakout years in 2011 and Headley to (hopefully) progress into the hitter he’s supposed to be.

When you look at it that way and consider that last year was a 90+ win team, then it’s good things in store even if it isn’t an offensive juggernaut.

2) I’m worried about the amount of innings Mat Latos pitched last year. Are you worried? Can he throw a successful 200 IP this year?

It’s a legitimate concern, but the Padres were really careful with Latos last year. Bud Black kept him under 100 pitches for the majority of his starts and they found creative ways to give him breaks throughout the season. He was used a little bit more than they would have liked because the Padres were in a pennant race but still his highest pitch count was 110 pitches. We’re not worried about him more than we’re worried about any other pitcher. Also, the dude’s a professional athlete getting paid to throw. Let’s get him throwing.

3) I get excited about Kyle Blanks every year it seems and then every year he doesn’t get playing time. Will he see 400 ABs this year?

No way will he get 400 ABs. He’s still rehabbing his arm from Tommy John surgery. He’ll play some games in Spring Training but he’ll definitely be starting in the minors. Brade Hawpe will be the Padres first baseman this year and we might see Blanks towards the end of the season when rosters expand. Even then, Anthony Rizzo (one of the prospects from the Adrian Gonzalez deal) is projecting to be a Major League ready type guy in the next couple of years, so Blanks’ now has a window of expectation to prove his value at first. His big advantage: He is an ogre.

Jed Hoyer said that maybe his biggest regret last season was not getting Tim Stauffer into the rotation sooner, when injuries and fatigue started to mount late in the season. We’d be willing to bet some nominal amount of money that Stauffer puts together a more productive year than Chris Young next season. We’re not claiming a big season from him, and we don’t think he’ll perform beyond a number 3 starter, but he’ll leverage good karma and Petco Park to his advantage and finally become a regular starting pitcher this season.

As far as Luebke goes, we’re looking forward to seeing more of him next season, but we don’t see him making the rotation straight away. At best, he’d beat out a 5th starter spot, but a more likely scenario is him acing a AAA staff. With the AAA team a little closer to San Diego, Luebke will likely make some spot starts down the stretch, and will be the first man up if any sort of injury hits the staff. Aaron Harang will be making a run at Comeback Player of the Year, but if that stalls at all, then Luebke will be a really nice fallback for the latter half of the year.

5) It’s still too early to tell how the San Diego Padres fared in the Adrian Gonzalez trade. In retrospect, which San Diego trade is the most regrettable: 1) Ozzie Smith for Garry Templeton. 2) Trading Fred McGriff for Melvin Nieves and some even crappier prospects. 3) The blockbuster trade for a panda that cost the zoo a couple of ligers, a unicorn, and a 6-foot anthropomorphic chicken.

Garry Templeton is part of San Diego and so embodies what it is to be a San Diego Padres fan that it is impossible to regret that trade. It’s like a Red Sox fan “regretting” ever selling Babe Ruth to the Yankees. It is a defining trait. Fred McGriff was destined to be a journeyman.

I guess that leaves option 3, though we’ve since got the chicken back and I heard the unicorn died.

If any Razz commenter is bored today and/or is kind-hearted and wants to help out a fellow Grey-ite, my league has an auction on ESPN starting at 1PM Eastern and we have an MIA owner. I would *really* prefer that there are no robots in the draft, so I am willing to risk one of you savvy guys (and three girls) building a monster team that will go on to crush me. Please post here if you are willing; I think it should last about 2.5 hours. If nothing else, it’s good practice for auctions, right?

Congrats Grey, on finding a Padres blog that is not complete and unabashed homers.

Oh, wait.

And Kyle Blanks only as a September callup? Did I miss the part where Brad Hawpe met up with Doc Brown and headed back to 2007? Hawpe isn’t that good anymore, hasn’t been healthy in a while, and is taking his bat from Coors to Petco (ignoring the Tampa thing).

Hawpe is going to suck at some point this year. It is pretty unreasonable to dismiss Blanks coming up before September.

Grey, this is the closest thing to a post you have mentioned Will Venable. Bud Black has said Venable will lead off, and that with AGon no longer there, the light is green to run. Black also said he wants 40+ SB. (http://tiny.cc/uquz5) Venable is 28 and in his prime with his first full time gig. He could get 80-90 runs, 20 HRs, and 40 SB. That is 3 of the 5 stats Crawford puts up but I can get him in the last round instead of the first round. His RBIs won’t go up if he stays at the lead off, and his average is .250. But even Drew Stubbs is 10-15 rounds early in most drafts.

So he won’t be the number one OF in 2011 unless he can cut his 1 SO/game in half, but to put up Stubbs numbers from am undrafted fantasy player?

I was drafting last night in a 14 team mixed with $300 in salary. I already had Fielder and Howard as 1B’s (the contracts were favorable), but the first name called out was Miggy. He was going for $50, and I had him valued at $75… Without thinking, I dropped $51 and filled my last util spot on the first name of the draft. Miggy love is true love.

@ritzer: No problem, not worried about Heyward. I imagine your offense is weaker than most teams in your league because you took pitchers for three straight rounds. Team looks competitive though if light on steals.

This looks like a classic Grey draft. Longoria there is a good buy, got good timing enough to come back and get Howard. Phillips was the last good 2B left, then he snagged two OF that’ll give him power and speed, and finished it off with a Gallardo pick and Andrus who he has ranked high. Looks like Grey to me.

@Jason: If you check that sites home page, they have rounds 8-15 posted. I agree, Jason. It is totally a Grey draft, and based on what I was seeing, he definitely has gotten the most value and has a super-competitive team.

Found this site via the razzball fantasy basketball site where Adam has helped steer my team to a respectable 9th place finish in a ten team league. That dude can write though! Anywho, what do you think of my team?

Most of this month long draft was done via drunken text message from dive-y bars as I was going through a whirlwind romance / breakup with an attractive improv comedienne pretty much from the second round through my last pick. As you might imagine, I’m just pleased I got someone to fill every position. The problem is, in order to make that happen that meant there were Sunday afternoons when my post-coital brain, drunk on a dozen mimosas, would pick a dreggy player like Yuni Escobar for fear that my roster lacked at that position. Ike Davis was taken in a fit of despondency the morning after the “break up” when I awoke from 3 hours of sleep curled up on my loveseat. My head was pounding and I still wearing shoes and my winter coat.

My strategy, formulated after the “breakup” / draft when fantasy was back on my mind, was to disregard 3Bs, SBs and errors–since those categories are stupid–and go after power potential, figuring power’s positively correlated with 2Bs, runs, rbis & bbs and only negatively correlated (for fantasy purposes) with Ks. On the pitching side, I want to compete in L, SV, HRs, BBs, HLD, ERA and WHIP by scraping by the 40 IP minimum with my production concentrated in relief innings.

I’d appreciate some validation, particularly re: my love life. Advice on how to fix my fantasy team so I can love it as much as I wanted to love my wayward bartender / comedienne. I’m hugely impressed with the quality of writing on this site. You’re entertaining, funny and knowledgeable.

@Bravo: You also look light on power and heavy on speed. Not sure why you would follow a Reyes pick with a Victorino one.

@Bad at Fantasy: Thanks for the kind words and the story, very entertaining. You look light on speed and anything that goes with it in your categories. I’d lose Yunel and grab anyone that is going to get 20+ steals. Your pitching looks solid though, so that’s good.

@Grey: 12 team, 5 x 5 roto draft. keeping tulo and cargo and will take a 1b with my first pick (miggy, votto or howard). for second round pick, i think ill have choice between youk and kemp. assuming other top 3b will be gone by this pick. grab youk or take the value in kemp?

Thanks for the reply, Grey. I drafted Victorino in the 9th round. Using the projections on the War room spreadsheet, I would be 7th in steals, but of course those are just projections. So sounds like I should’ve went a little heavier on power and if I happen to need more steals during the year, I’d add them through pick ups?

Thanks for having an awesome website Grey. I am trying to wedge myself away from having 5 pitchers in the first eight rounds. I am starting to like Kemp and Cruz as possible third rounders after a 1b/3b combo.

Here is my question: is it really hard to like a shortstop after the first round? If I did the same thing with SS as I might with C and just take some waiver fliers, am I giving up too much offense by having two questionable to flat positions?

@Grey: I don’t know what’s wrong with me. The rat part of my brain keeps punting 2B. What’s wrong with punting 2B and picking up the Danny Espinosa’s late? I’d rather go to battle with Elvis & Espinosa than say Drew and Prado.

Who do you like better for a Util spot this year Billy Butler or Ichiro………….Kidding!
Seriously though on a scale of 1 to 10 how much do you love Dallas Braden?
I keed…super seriously though…I know we all got burnt by AJ, Burnett not Mass, but well everyone’s been burned by Mass, but what I am trying to ask is, do we give Burnett another go this year if he falls late enough, which it is looking like he is, so do we?

@Jay: I know that. What I’m saying is that what is being said here is different from what’s in the Top 20 because they are the views of two different people. Obviously Padre blogger guy is more optimistic about Latos than Grey is.

Turns out that being a Padres fan and playing FBB won’t have to conflict this year, because I intend to stay away from any draftable Padres (ie, Latos-injury risk, Bell- SAGNOF, and Ludwick- uh… he’d be better off on someone else’s team). Could be some good waiver wire material, though.

As a fan of real baseball (ie, not fantasy), I’m guardedly optimistic about the Padres this year. Last year I hoped for .500 baseball, and was very happily surprised. After they traded Adrian (which was like a week after I bought a full season of tickets, hoping to sell most of them to pay for the games I did attend- IDIOT!), they made a bunch of good small moves, slowly bettering the team. They’re betting on sorta-veterans having bounce back years (Harang, Cantu, Hudson, Bartlett and Hawpe). They could all blow, which would make for a long summer. But if, say, three of the five had some sort of resurgence, the games will at least be fun. And when they bring up their top prospects later in the summer, it will be even more fun.

After rereading this comment, I realize that I sound like a little league coach. Winning isn’t everything! Just have fun! But I think this is the only way one can enjoy small market baseball. Personally, I prefer it to what it might feel like to be a large market team right now, where one expects nothing short of a championship. Which reminds me of a good friend whom I once, in our teens, asked, “why aren’t there any girls you’re into?” “Because you either break up or get married- either way you lose.” Took me about a year after that comment to figure out he was gay.

Which I suppose in the context of this comment means that I’m gay for the Padres! Now that’s a phrase to screen on a shirt for opening day!

@Steve: My bad, Steve. You might as well call me Andy Pettitte because I misremembered. I seem to recall that Grey is rightly dubious about the “Verducci Effect” so I automatically thought he wasn’t worried about the Latos innings jump, forgetting what he wrote in the Top 20 SP.

Glad you guys posted a Pads preview that thoroughly undresses their lineup.

Now the rest of the baseball world can see what we Padre fans have had to endure for the last 12 years or so (even the early Petco playoff teams sucked).

At least most other small market teams (Florida, Tampa Bay, Minnesota, etc. basically every other team not in Pittsburgh) had exciting young talent that they acquired via the draft, the DR, or big trades.

The Padres went through a self-imposed dry spell in the farm system because of the Sandy Alderson/Paul DePodesta MoneyBall crap drafts year after year that produced scores of un-athletic versions of Matt Stairs. And you know what you get? A LINE UP FULL OF 7-HOLE HITTERS!

Grey – in follow up to my question about Mart Cains injury, would u trade him straight up for Scherzer? Or should I be equally worried about Max’s max-effort throwing motion and potential for future injury? It is a dynasty league if that changes your thought process.

I am looking at a trade of $35 Howard for 3 years for a $25 Zimmerman for 3 years. I have Miggy/Fielder at 1B and McGehee at 3B. I don’t realllly need a 3B, but I’m currently clogging my utils with elite 1B and have no flex. I figure Zimmerman is a good dynasty value at $25 ($300 league). Though if Howard has 3 good years left in him, I’m screwed. Your thoughts on Howard moving forward?

Thinking of taking moustakas in the late keeper rounds of my 14 team league this year. If I do this I will sacrifice a 12th round pick in 2012 and a 6th rd pick in 2013, with the option to use a 1st rounder to protect him in 2014. Does razzball nation think his progress will be quick enough to make these values? If he spends most of this year in the minors I don’t know if he’s worth the roster spot, but 3b is a position desperately in need of a talent infusion… and in my league these late round picks are the only keepers available to us, so there isn’t a lot of them overall.

@Grey: Took about two days, really. I think it got old very fast for a few reasons: 1. Everyone knew about it, and everyone knew that it was hilarious, in a way; 2. It’s not a character; and, 3. It’s simultaneously really depressing. Now, if 2 is not true, and this is actually some sort of art project, he is, without a doubt, winning.

Fortunately, I only have one league with a Sheen joke team name. I’m only in two leagues this year, though.

I was actually indirectly commenting on the back and forth between Grey and royce. They were saying how the Sheen jokes got old fast, and royce mentioned that he only has one team named after the Sheen debacle.

If you name your team after a meme, come September you’re not going to have a clue what it even means.

Ike Davis and Justin Upton did have remarkably similar seasons last year except when it came to steals (JUpside steals, Ike doesn’t).

However, I think beyond the difference in steals, Ike D’s production isn’t seen as valuable as JUpside’s because it comes at first base. 19/71 is pretty blah-tastic for a first baseman, whereas that might be pretty good for an OF.